Drink Your Dessert

One of the biggest hindrances to eating well is not having enough time to prepare the foods that you should be eating. I keep telling myself, "failing to plan is planning to fail." So on the first day of my eating-well adventure, April 1st (I'm referring to this month as Ass Kicking April!), I planned ahead of time what I would be eating for breakfast and lunch. I was out of town the weekend prior and didn't have time to go to the grocery store.  I am lucky enough to have a fantastic little market in my building at work that makes healthy and delicious fruit & veggie smoothies. That market was going to be my first stop on my first day of Ass Kicking April. I asked for the blender pitcher to be filled with strawberries, mango, pineapple, carrots, baby spinach, and a banana. The smoothie those ingredients made was SO good! I couldn't believe it. I decided right then and there to incorporate this healthy breakfast into my new daily routine. It actually became my favorite part of all the new things I'm trying out.

The next week I promptly took myself to Target, bought myself a blender (my old blender blew out while I was making these margaritas), and meandered over to the freezer section to see if I could find some frozen fruit. I hit the jackpot! They just so happened to be having a sale on their frozen fruit so I stocked up: strawberries, blueberries, mango, and one that kind of caught me by surprise - cherries. At first I didn't think I needed to buy them, but then something popped into my head that got me very excited: a cherry/chocolate smoothie! Oh hell yeah! I threw those babies in my basket and headed for the checkout while writing this recipe in my head.

Cherries and chocolate are a classic combination. The taste that inspired this recipe is a dessert from one of my favorite DC restaurants, Zaytinya. The first time I went there, my friend and I shared this fantastic chocolate mousse topped with macerated dark cherries. I wanted to try to recreate that flavor in my smoothie.

Although I did end up making this smoothie for breakfast, I would definitely consider it more of a dessert smoothie. I have been known to eat cake, brownies, or cupcakes for breakfast when in a pinch, so eating this smoothie as breakfast wasn't too far of a stretch for me haha But for you normal folks out there, I would recommend this be eaten after dinner.

A lot of the ingredients can be switched out for other things, so I would like to add a few notes about the ingredients. Eating smoothies is a great way to get nutrients into your bloodstream, but it's also a great way to pack some protein into your diet. I use nut butter & flax seed to accomplish this. I use raw almond butter in my recipe because I consider it to be one of the healthiest nut butters (along with raw cashew butter). But if you don't have access to that, you could go ahead and use natural peanut butter, although that will change the flavor of your smoothie slightly.  You could leave the nut butter out all together and add a few cubes of silken tofu as a substitute. You could also leave out the flax seed if you don't have that on hand.  I consider that to just be like an added bonus or booster to my smoothies, but it isn't a necessary ingredient.  If you have chia seeds though, that would be a good substitute. I use almond milk here but you could switch that out for regular milk (2%, skim, whatever), or even soy, rice, or coconut milk. Whatever floats your boat

Alright, let's get blendin'!

Indulgent Cherry Chocolate Smoothie

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup frozen cherries
1/4 cup green tea, cooled
1/4 cup vanilla almond milk
4 teaspoons unsweetened chocolate powder
1/2 teaspoon ground flax seed
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 banana
1 teaspoon almond butter
1 handful organic baby spinach leaves
1 handful ice
Dark chocolate shavings and mint leaves to garnish (optional)

 

Place the frozen cherries, green tea, almond milk, unsweetened cocoa powder, ground flax, and vanilla in the blender.

Turn the blender on "puree" for about 20-30 seconds, depending on how long it takes your blender to completely puree the ingredients into a smooth, drinkable mixture.  Turn the blender off.

 

Next, add the banana & almond butter. Turn the blender on "mix" for about 10 seconds until the banana and almond butter are combined with the liquid.

 

At this time, add your handful of organic baby spinach leaves. Turn the blender on "puree" for about 15 seconds. The spinach should be completely disintegrated into the smoothie at this point.

 

Last, add a handful of ice and set the blender to "puree" until the ice is chopped up and mixed into the smoothie.

Remove the lid from the blender and pour the smoothie into your serving glass.

Shave some dark chocolate on the top, garnish with a sprig of spearmint, stick in a straw, and drink away! Salute!